Tag: nakoa

How popular is the baby name Nakoa in the United States right now? How popular was it historically? Find out using the graph below! Plus, see baby names similar to Nakoa and check out all the blog posts that mention the name Nakoa.

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Mahealani, 5, means “sixteenth day of the lunar month; night of the full moon” (source).

Nai’a, 5, means “dolphin.”

Noelani, 5, means “heavenly (lani) mist (noe).”

The Honolulu Star-Advertiser said Malia (ranked 21st overall) was the most popular Hawaiian name for girls in 2013, but Malia is is just the Hawaiian form of the non-Hawaiian name Mary, so I didn’t include it. I didn’t include several other names (like Keoni, Hawaiian for “John”) for the same reason.

Popular Hawaiian Names for Boys

Kai, 38 baby boys, means “sea.” Kai was the 19th most popular boy name overall in Hawaii last year.

Kapi’ioho, “curly hair.” It’s like the Hawaiian version of Crispin (Latin crispus, “curly”).

‘Opunui, “big-bellied” (‘opu, “belly” + nui, “big”). Big bellies were a status symbol in old Hawaii. According to one source, “the elite lived lavishly, were feasting constantly, and the highest chiefs were distinguished by their corpulence.”

Another celebrity has gone with a Hawaiian baby name. Helen Hunt has a daughter named Makena Lei, Lisa Bonet has a son named Nakoa-Wolf Manakauapo Namakaeha, and now Evangeline Lilly has a son named Kahekili.

This is old news, actually. Lilly’s baby (with boyfriend Norman Kali) was born in mid-2011, and the name was revealed later that year. Kahekili means “the thunder” in Hawaiian: ka is “the” and hekili is “thunder.”

But apparently Lilly has only recently come out with the full story behind Kahekili’s name:

My son was born outside in Hawaii in the middle of a thunder and lightning storm that was so insane that we had an island-wide power outage… We were woken out of our sleep by the thunder, it was so intense, and in Hawaii they call that mana, which is like your essence or your spirit… so we had to name him after his mana.

She’d previously mentioned that the baby was born “outside in a thunderstorm.” Also, that the name wasn’t chosen right away: “My baby did not have a name for a month. It took me a month to name my child.”

A handful of other baby boys have been named Kahekili lately. In fact, over past few years, the name has popped up on the national list three times and on the Hawaii list twice:

In Hawaiian, Nakoa (na koa) means either “the warrior” or “the koa [tree].” Manakauapo includes elements meaning “spirit” (mana) “the rain” (ka ua) and “night” (po). Namakaeha, passed down from dad, seems to have something to do with “the eyes” (na maka), but I can’t figure out what the last element stands for.